1. Field of the Invention
The present invention finds use in plug-in connectors whose housing has at least one insertion chamber for accommodating contact elements.
2. The Prior Art
Plug-in connectors having a housing are known. In this connection, several electrical contact elements are usually arranged in the housing, in several rows that are parallel to one another, for example, 96 electrical contact elements in three rows. These plug-in connectors correspond to specific DIN standards.
The housing consists of an injection-molded part made of plastic, into which the electrical contact elements can be inserted. These electrical contact elements can be configured in such a manner that they are completely inserted into the housing at one end, from one side, and are configured there in the form of a spring, into which another electrical contact element can be brought into engagement, which is inserted into the housing from the other side. At the other end, the electrical contact elements project beyond the housing.
It is known that the segments of the contact elements that project beyond the housing are configured to have different lengths for specific requirements, in the same plug-in connector. For example, short contact elements having a contact region that projects only slightly beyond the housing, or long contact elements whose contact region is preceded by a guide segment can be provided.
For reasons of stability, the “long” contact elements are made from a heavier sheet-metal cut-out, i.e. with a greater thickness, than the “shorter” contact elements, in known manner. In this connection, the electrical contact elements have an insertion region that is pushed into a corresponding insertion chamber in the housing and held there with a positive lock. Because of the different material thicknesses of the short and long contact elements, these insertion regions of the contact elements also differ, so that different insertion chambers have to be formed in the housing for different contact elements.
In this connection, it is known that all the insertion chambers of a housing of one plug-in connector have the same cross-section, i.e. the same shape, and that a different cross-section shape is formed only in the other insertion chambers into which contact elements having a different cross-sectional shape in the insertion region are later supposed to be inserted, in an additional machining step, for example material removal using a router.
This is connected with significant costs as a result of the additional machining step, and can also result in inaccuracies in the fit.